PPP Flogs Dead Hipster

Whether the persistence of hipster eulogies is a sign of the West’s cultural stagnation or merely the slipperiness of the term, I couldn’t tell you. What’s incontrovertible is the hipster hasbeendyingforaboutfiveyearsnow. It’s true because sensitive, trend-spotting journalists have said so. But as far as I know this is the first time its death has been studied gromatically by political scientists:

Just 16% of Americans have a favorable opinion of hipsters, a new PPP poll on the much-discussed subculture shows. 42% have an unfavorable opinion of hipsters, and 43% aren’t sure. Democrats (18% favorable, 34% unfav) are twice as likely as Republicans (9% fav, 48% unfav) to have a favorable opinion. Voters age 18-29 have a favorable opinion of them (43% fav-29% unfav), but very few voters over age 65 do (6% fav -37% unfav).

Just 10% of voters say they consider themselves to be hipsters – and almost all of those are younger voters. Half of all voters aged 18-29 consider themselves hipsters; every other age group is 5% or less. … 27% of voters said they thought hipsters should be subjected to a special tax for being so annoying, while 73% did not think so. About one in five voters (21%) said they thought Pabst Blue Ribbon, commonly associated with hipsters, was a good beer. Democrats (29%) were more likely than Republicans (23%) to think so, while independents (11%) were least likely.

My favorite hipster eulogy is still this Adbusters—yes, I know it’s left-wing—piece, for the sheer hopelessness of it, and that it comes from their same political/philosophical position as most of the people we would describe as such. It quotes TakiMag contributor and Vice founding editor Gavin McInnes:

“I’ve always found that word ["hipster"] is used with such disdain, like it’s always used by chubby bloggers who aren’t getting laid anymore and are bored, and they’re just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable,” he says. “I’m dubious of these hypotheses because they always smell of an agenda.”

In other words, people use the word like they use the word “yuppie”—pejoratively. Since this isn’t something PPP regularly measures, we can’t be sure if opinion has soured, but I suspect not. My guess is the public at large always hated them.

At least now we know what polling firms do when there’s not a big election coming up.

Does anyone really even know what a hipster really means anymore save for some vague idea of desperately trying not to conform to society whilst at the same time trying to give off the notion that one belongs in some counterculture dialect which of course counters the very idea of what makes for a true counter culture figure in the first place.

Which is to suggest most of you slackers have no real idea what you’re doing in and probably why so many Americans ignore you to begin with…

Hipster encompasses such a vast territory now that the term is completely devoid of meaning. For example, I saw the term used to describe someone who “only listens to pop music” which refuted my original definition of the term.

People d’un certain age will not understand at all what the modern meaning of the word ‘hipster’ is. I know I sure don’t, even though years ago I read the bizarre and overly long article titled “The White Negro” by Norman Mailer.
The book was supposed to have defined what a hipster was. In fact after I read it, I couldn’t square it with the image of the hipster in my mind. (Think of a white or Latino dressed in the style of the character in “The Mask” standing on a street corner against a lamp post and twirling a long key chain and listening to the jazz emanating from an open door of a nearby night club called The Black Pussy Cafe [forgive me W.C. Fields].http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1075890.The_White_Negro